clothes moths

[almadianna]

how to help get rid of these things without using moth balls or anything else that is icky for us.

They are annoying!!

[SquishyKitty]

Cedar blocks or chips work too.

[bigteamug]

wash all your wool clothes, and probably other clothes with them in the closet (esp silk and other "protein-rich" fabrics), or consider other options like freezing them (for me that takes too much space and isn't reliable enough), drycleaning (ugh, chemicals) or tossing them in the dryer on high for a bit (supposedly, if they are completely dry when you do this it would be safe, as compared with wet, which would felt them...but I'd be a bit leery, esp with a favorite sweater...). Vacuum the whole house really well, esp the infested areas, and THROW THE BAG OUT WHEN YOU'RE DONE. Otherwise, the eggs/moths stay in the bag and you repeat the whole problem. If you've tried these already, I dunno.

Oh, and be sure to bag up any sweaters/wool not in use in plastic, but only store them clean. Do you have any wool rugs in your house? Might have some beasties hiding there....and also, always wash any used clothes you bring in right away, as you can bring them home from the thrift or consignment shop that way.

[rainyday]

We've battled them for years here. Dry cleaning all our wool stuff just really isn't financially feasible, and we don't have a large chest freezer. What we've finally resorted to is storing all our woolens in plastic zippered or zip-top bags when they're not being worn. We air out whatever we wore for a couple of hours or overnight if necessary, quickly brush the item (this is key because it will brush off any eggs that were laid on it while it was airing), and then put it in a sealed bag. This has preserved many of our favorite sweaters. We're also ruthless now about killing any clothing-type moths that we see, and I think this has also helped. We still find occasional holes, but it's much, much less often, and usually in things we've forgotten to bag.

I've heard that cedar will only repel them if it's a very large, fragrant amount of cedar. It also has to be sanded and/or replaced regularly to maintain its potency. And it's only effective against the moths, not the larvae. YExperienceMV but we found it didn't even come close to solving the problem for us.

Good luck!

[bigteamug]

I think I also saw another recipe for a homemade herbal moth repellent somewhere, but it included wormwood as one of the herbs (I think the others were to mask it), I think - not sure if that is healthy or a smell I would want on me. and, yep, they do need to be sealed up tight with the sweaters in plastic to work.

[lakeruby]

We've had them for years, too!

Using sachets filled with cedar (and I use other herbs like lavendar, too) seems to help keep them out of my closets, but I still find their cocoons hanging on our ceilings. I make sure to check for the cocoons once a week, and, slowly, the amount has been decreasing. The main place they lived, for us, was in my yarn stash! At one point I had to just toss a whole bunch of beautiful skeines.....So sad Now I store my yarn in plastic bags, and I make sure to wash any thrifted or side-of-the-road fabric finds before bringing them in the house.